The Top 9 Most Costly Financial Services Data Breaches

The recent data breach involving MasterCard and VISA card information is only the latest in a string of hacks and thefts that have cost financial institutions multimillions of dollars. Here are the biggest most recent data breaches.

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Global Payments Inc.

Type: Hack
Cost: Unknown

On March 30, Brian Krebs, who runs the website KrebsonSecurity.com, reported that MasterCard and Visa began warning banks about a breach at a processor that could involve 10 million compromised card numbers. According to Krebs, the alert says, "Full Track 1 and Track 2 data was taken -- meaning that the information could be used to counterfeit new cards."

According to KrebsonSecurity.com, Visa recently announced in a release that, "Visa Inc. is aware of a potential data compromise incident at a third-party entity affecting card account information from all major card brands. There has been no breach of Visa systems, including its core processing network VisaNet."